Thursday, October 14, 2010

Low Fat Milk Ganache - Cheat To Indulge!!

Do you believe in low-fat food? My answer is yes and no. I believe only in relatively low fat food. Oh yep, let me apologize at the beginning of this post if I sound like a sermonizing dietitian, since I am not one. A dietitian I mean:-). Having a tendency to gain weight easily, lose it slowly, a couple of lessons I learnt during the course of weight loss are something I am not going to forget in a hurry.

One of those lessons is, its NOT fine to eat as much food as you like as long as it is healthy, when you are on a weight loss programme. This is applicable specially to sweets and desserts which are usually made with All Purpose Flour or Maida as the main ingredient, are loaded with sugar and at least some quantity of fat thrown in. Well, sometimes the sugar is replaced with an artificial sweetener or honey or jaggery making this a 'healthy and sugar free' sweet. Honey and jaggery may have more nutritional value as compared to sugar, but honey they are definitely not calorie free!! And when you eat a sugar-free dessert, your calories from sugar are reduced in the dessert, but the calories and fat from other ingredients in the dessert are not zapped away!!!

The point I am trying to communicate is, be vary of low fat food. Its great to eat low fat food, but is really helpful only when you eat the same in normal or small quantities and only as frequently as you are allowed to indulge. Do not binge on low fat food as you will not lose weight. If you have to lose weight, you have to create a calorific deficit. This is created when you take in less calories as compared to the calories you burn. That is when you can lose weight. That is the reason you are supposed to eat even vegetables and salads in the prescribed quantities as as advised by your dietitian. And end of my boring little speech..

So, ladies and gentlemen.. prehsenting.. a relatively Low Fat Ganache which I insist you try for sure, but treat yourself to a small portion.

This idea for the low fat ganache was from a chef at a popular resort. I had to experiment with the proportion though to get a ganache of piping consistency. Here is what I did

Procedure: Heat the milk and the butter in a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil and lower the heat to minimum. Add the chocolate and stir gently with a spatula till all the chocolate melts and you have a smooth, velvety mixture. Take the saucepan off the heat. Cover the saucepan with a clingfilm and allow the ganache to come to room temperature. Stir in the vanilla(if using) and strain the mixture to get rid of any small lumps or air bubbles. Make sure the vanilla is at room temperature and not cold or the chocolate may seize.

The ganache was almost of pouring consistency and not very thick(like ganache made with cream). The consistency at this point of time is perfect to be used as a dessert topping or pouring ganache. Since I wanted to try piping the ganache, I put it in the fridge. I left it overnight as it was quite late. A couple of hours in the fridge should get the cream to piping consistency.

If the ganache is too thick when taken out of the fridge, leave it at room temperature for some time or warm very carefully for a few seconds in the microwave. Use as needed.

I was able to pipe the ganache quite well, but had to use my free hand to 'cut off' the ganache after piping. Which is why you see tiny thin tails on the top.

This can be a perfect frosting for a low fat cake .The taste was good, but not as rich like a ganache made with cream. But definitely worth a try I can assure you... So cheat to indulge, but just a bit:-))

Rujuta Diwekar,in her book says the same thing.It is better to stick to regular food than low-fat,because we assume low-fat is good and eat endless quantities whereas,we are cautious while eating regular food.Thanks for the recipe though,I've not been baking for a while now[you know why]!!

Thanks so much for the basics of this recipe. I tweaked it a bit and thought I would share it with you. I used no fat half and half for the milk portion and only used 1/3 cup. I added 3 Tlb. of no fat sweetened condensed milk (this helped make the no fat half and half thicker). Followed the rest except that I also used some very dark unsweetened cocoa for some of the chocolate to help cut back on the fat. End result - Absolutely awesome! Used the ganache onto of some Chocolate Porter cupcakes I made! Not too sweet and pared with the cupcake really nicely.